1. Field of the Disclosure
Generally, the present disclosure relates to the field of integrated circuits and semiconductor devices, and, more particularly, to the formation of semiconductor devices comprising transistor devices having embedded stress-inducing layers in the source and drain regions adjacent to the channel regions.
2. Description of the Related Art
The fabrication of advanced integrated circuits, such as CPUs, storage devices, ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) and the like, requires the formation of a large number of circuit elements on a given chip area according to a specified circuit layout. In a wide variety of electronic circuits, field effect transistors represent one important type of circuit element that substantially determines performance of the integrated circuits. Generally, a plurality of process technologies are currently practiced for forming field effect transistors, wherein, for many types of complex circuitry, MOS technology is currently one of the most promising approaches due to the superior characteristics in view of operating speed and/or power consumption and/or cost efficiency. During the fabrication of complex integrated circuits using, for instance, CMOS technology, millions of N-channel transistors and P-channel transistors are formed on a substrate including a crystalline semiconductor layer.
The conductivity of the channel region, i.e., the drive current capability of the conductive channel, is controlled by a gate electrode formed in the vicinity of the channel region and separated therefrom by a thin insulating layer. The conductivity of the channel region, upon formation of a conductive channel due to the application of an appropriate control voltage to the gate electrode, depends on, among other things, the dopant concentration, the mobility of the majority charge carriers and, for a given extension of the channel region in the transistor width direction, on the distance between the source and drain regions, which is also referred to as channel length. Hence, in combination with the capability of rapidly creating a conductive channel below the insulating layer upon application of the control voltage to the gate electrode, the overall conductivity of the channel region substantially determines the performance of the MOS transistors. Thus, the reduction of the channel length, and associated therewith the reduction of the channel resistivity, renders the channel length a dominant design criterion for accomplishing an increase in the operating speed of the integrated circuits.
The continuing shrinkage of the transistor dimensions, however, involves a plurality of issues associated therewith that have to be addressed so as to not unduly offset the advantages obtained by steadily decreasing the channel length of MOS transistors. It has been proposed to enhance the channel conductivity of the transistor elements by increasing the charge carrier mobility in the channel region for a given channel length, thereby offering the potential for achieving a performance improvement that is comparable with the advance to a future technology node while avoiding or at least postponing many of the process adaptations associated with device scaling.
One efficient mechanism for increasing the charge carrier mobility is the modification of the lattice structure in the channel region, for instance, by creating tensile or compressive stress in the vicinity of the channel region to produce a corresponding strain in the channel region, which results in a modified mobility for electrons and holes, respectively. For example, creating tensile strain in the channel region for a standard crystallographic configuration of the active silicon material, i.e., a (100) surface orientation with the channel length aligned to the <110> direction, increases the mobility of electrons, which, in turn, may directly translate into a corresponding increase in the conductivity and in th performance of N-channel transistors. On the other hand, compressive strain in the channel region may increase the mobility of holes, thereby providing the potential for enhancing the performance of P-channel transistors.
Particularly, it has been proposed to introduce a silicon/germanium layer next to the channel region to induce a compressive stress that may result in a corresponding strain. The strained silicon/germanium compound, which may also be referred to as a silicon/germanium alloy, may be provided in a strained state due to a mismatch of the lattice spacing between natural silicon and natural silicon/germanium alloy. That is, the silicon/germanium material may be formed on the basis of the silicon lattice spacing, thereby resulting in a strained silicon/germanium crystal lattice, which may then interact with the neighboring semiconductor material to exert a stress and thus cause a certain strain. The transistor performance of P-channel transistors may be considerably enhanced by the introduction of stress-creating layers next to the channel region. For this purpose, a strained silicon/germanium layer may be formed in the drain and source regions of the transistors, wherein the compressively strained drain and source regions create uniaxial strain in the adjacent silicon channel region. When forming the silicon/germanium layer, the drain and source regions of the PMOS transistors are selectively recessed, while the NMOS transistors are masked and subsequently the silicon/germanium layer is selectively formed in the PMOS transistor by epitaxial growth.
However, a particular problem arises by varying distances between individual gates of transistor devices. Regions of semiconductor devices comprising transistor devices with larger gate spacing (poly spacing) have higher volumes of embedded stress-inducing material (for example, embedded silicon germanium, eSiGe) than regions with transistor devices with smaller poly spacing. Thereby, different on-currents and hence different delay times in the circuit disadvantageously result, a phenomenon known in the context of the so-called poly spacing effect.
In view of the situation described above, the present disclosure provides techniques that allow for the formation of semiconductor devices comprising field effect transistors (FETs) with embedded semiconductor material adjacent to the channel regions with relatively uniform on-currents and a reduced poly spacing effect as compared to the art.